My heart has no colour: Lusotropicalism and Black Lusophone representation in the Eurovision Song Contest 1994 – 1996.

The Eurovision Song Contest states that ‘a rich history of promoting diversity [and] inclusivity’ is amongst its core values. Furthermore, the contest claims to able to ‘bridge differences and ignite a sense of shared community.’ Despite this, Catherine Baker notes in 2021 that Eurovision’s ‘shared community’ still celebrates a ‘Europe commonly, though wrongly, thought of as a historically white place.’ Throughout the 1990s Portugal sent several entries by Black performers (1994 and 1995) or celebrating a racially diverse Lusophone culture (Lucia Moniz’s O meu coração não tem cor, 1996). This paper will examine Portugal’s use of Black performers and/or Black Lusophone culture in Eurovision and analyse the extent to which these entries were able to subvert the default ‘white’ European-ness on the Eurovision stage. Through these performances, this paper will scrutinise Gilberto Freyre’s ideas of Lusotropicalism, which purports a Portuguese ‘adaptability to the tropics and inherent lack of prejudice’ exploring the extent to which these representations of Black Lusophone culture constituted a real engagement with Portugal’s colonial history and a sense of ‘belonging’ for Black Portuguese

Echoes and Frequencies: Tele-Visions and Wireless Technologies

This issue investigates the layered temporalities, shifting modalities, and evolving infrastructures of tele-visions – a plural, hyphenated term designating the spectrum of remote viewing technologies that have shaped, and continually reshape, how images travel and appear across distances. From early optical telegraphs and nineteenth-century electromagnetic signal relays to today's ubiquitous digital environments, these systems condition how we think about, imagine, and experience the televisual. One element emerges as a particularly fruitful entry point into the archeology of tele-visions: the wireless. In many ways, the integration of Hertzian waves into telecommunications at the close of the nineteenth century marked an epistemic shift – a profound reordering of the technical, perceptual, and conceptual frameworks through which reality is organised and understood. The present issue explores the historical, technical, and artistic dimensions of that transformation, which, beyond the mere absence of cables, ushered in a new media paradigm whose political, philosophical, and environmental ramifications continue to be redefined with each successive wave of wireless innovation

Salvador Dalí's Liquid and Gaseous Television: a Mystical and Wireless Dream

How can you reach the sky? For Salvador Dalí, just turn on your TV. That is, the Liquid and Gaseous Television: one of his inventions (1975) turning TV into a vehicle for cosmic voyages that allow man to communicate with the universe. Perhaps even with God. This device needs no wires. In it, communicative and transcendental horizons converge, updating the surrealist techniques of activating the unconscious into a new formula aimed at overturning coercive television narcosis into a liberating mystical-cognitive three-dimensional ecstasy. Dalí's wireless TV is a mechanism of mediation between reality and spirituality, discontinuity and reconfiguration, man and the sky. A dream or a model that embodies the future of television

Tracing-at-a-Distance, or a Meaningful Level of Radioactivity

This article argues that radioisotopes – atoms with unstable nuclei which undergo decay and become detectable against less energised backgrounds – can be understood as a form of media, one that challenges the seeing-at-a-distance of the televisual with a 'tracing-at-a-distance' of radioactive decay. These energetic entities, largely released in the development and subsequent use of nuclear weapons, became indispensable tools for US ecologists during the Cold War, where tracing radioisotopes became a means to reveal biological pathways and biospheric processes with atomic precision. Thinking radioisotopes within the context of the televisual affords the opportunity to challenge the distinction between inscriptive and transmissional media, while bringing media studies into closer contact with the energy humanities and environmental history

COLLECT*MAKE*SHARE #4

COLLECT*MAKE*SHARE biedt ruimte aan makers om zich te laten inspireren door archiefmateriaal en dit door experimenten met grafische technieken eigen te maken. Het werkproces van elke maker wordt vastgelegd in een zine, bestaande uit visuele essays, schetsen en reflecties op het collectiemateriaal van Beeld & Geluid. Zo geven de zines een inkijk in beeldend onderzoek met archiefmateriaal als vertrekpunt. Editie #4 werkt voor het eerst met een thema, namelijk queer (re)presentatie. Een archief wordt vaak geassocieerd met een passief wezen wat objectief verslaglegging doet van de tijd. Maar in hoeverre is de LHBTIQA+ gemeenschap vertegenwoordigd in het grootste media-archief van Nederland? Welke verhalen worden er verteld? En door wie? Door hiaten en onder/misrepresentatie te erkennen, benoemen en hierop te reageren is het mogelijk om ons collectieve geheugen te bevragen en een vollediger beeld te schetsen. Vier queer beeldmakers delen via hun artistieke praktijk hun inzichten en verrassende ontdekkingen

Working Together for Cultural Heritage - RECHARGE Recommendations for Sustainable Collaboration

This poster summarises a white paper that proposes cultural heritage organisations reassess their core workflows and embrace collaborative practices to continue generating value as well as to improve their ability to capture value for all involved stakeholders. The poster puts forward actionable steps and strategies for how cultural heritage organisations can embrace participation and partnerships

Technonationalism and Telematic Art in Canada: Vera Frenkel’s String Games (1974)

This article considers String Games: Improvisations for Inter-City Video (Montreal–Toronto) (1974), a groundbreaking telematic artwork by the Canadian artist Vera Frenkel, in which participants in Toronto and Montreal played a remote version of cat's cradle over Bell Canada's early digital video conferencing network. Situating the work within the context of Canadian telecommunications infrastructure and cultural policy, the article argues that String Games subtly subverted the technonationalist ideals embedded in Canada's drive to unify its vast geography through networked media

Creating meaningful interactions with cultural heritage in immersive environments

Imagine a museum or archive without physical limits, audiences engaging with artifacts without the risk of damaging them, a collection that feels both living and boundless. This is the potential of eXtended Reality (XR). Does this opportunity excite you? Or are you feeling skeptical? Perhaps you’re still wondering: What exactly is XR? We hear you, and that’s why we put together a guide in which we discuss the opportunities, challenges, and practical barriers for bringing XR into cultural heritage spaces: “Creating meaningful interactions with cultural heritage in immersive environments”

Beyond Virtual Museums

Immersive formats like virtual museums and digital twins make heritage accessible, but they’re just the beginning. As eXtended Reality (XR) evolves, we can push beyond static exhibitions towards interactive, multisensory, and participatory storytelling—free from physical barriers. The challenge? Ensuring immersive experiences are scalable and accessible for institutions of all sizes. That’s why we created the Workbook Beyond Virtual Museums: Exploring Immersive Experience Opportunities in the Cultural Heritage Sector. The workbook invites cultural heritage professionals to explore new XR possibilities, experiment with bold ideas, and build concepts ready for collaboration and prototyping—moving beyond traditional virtual museum models

De diversiteit en complexiteit van factchecking in het Nederlandse medialandschap: een verkenning

Factchecking wordt breed erkend als een cruciaal middel om de negatieve impact van desinformatie tegen te gaan, maar er is een diversiteit aan opvattingen over wat precies wordt verstaan onder factchecking. Het gegeven dat factcheckers zich in verschillende institutionele contexten zoals nieuwsmedia, universiteiten en onafhankelijke organisaties bevinden, en het werk vanuit diverse perspectieven benaderen (journalistiek, wetenschap), maken het consequent handhaven van een heldere definitie lastig. Het feit dat het Nederlandse factchecklandschap zo divers is, maakt het uitdagend om de publicatiekanalen en financieringsstructuren helder in kaart te brengen. Dit onderzoek had als doel de factchecking activiteiten in het brede, Nederlandse medialandschap in kaart te brengen